Rafa Nadal never gives up. A hard-fought match, in which he had to get his hands dirty and certainly did not display extraordinary tennis, but with heart, suffering and a precious collaboration of Pedro Cachin manages to win with a score of 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-3 and tomorrow, if he manages to take the field after this marathon, he will face the Czech Jiri Lehecka, who won today against Thiago Monteiro, in the round of 16 of the Masters 1000 in Madrid.
The match immediately starts off on the right foot for Nadal: Cachin doesn’t offer him a particularly complex and difficult ball, the Spaniard can push especially from the side with his backhand, taking advantage of the not very high pace imposed on the exchange. The break comes immediately and another comes to lift the lead to 4-1: as the minutes pass, the forehand also gains incisiveness, depth, drive and effectiveness. Often with the backhand the court opens up and with the forehand it leaves the Argentine no chance. The Majorcan closes the set at 6-1remaining attached even in the seventh game: long rallies are increasingly the Spaniard’s prerogative, while the South American is unable to bother his opponent with his ball.
In the second set the game changes: Cachin shakes off some of the tension that had gripped him in the first set and now he is the one controlling the rallies, unlike what happened in the first set, when he was always thrown off the court to act as a windscreen wiper. Together with Cachin’s rise, there is a clear drop in intensity on Nadal’s part: the Argentine even goes ahead by two breaks and goes up 4-1. The Argentine gets stuck after an unsuccessful serve and volley and from 4-1 finds himself 4-3 0-30, but in this situation the Spaniard gives him a hand with two avoidable forehand errors.
At 5-4 the tension completely grips the world number 91: two double faults, missed forehands from mid-court, two failed set points and a counter-break immediately. However, the Iberian still makes too many errors and loses serve again at 5-5. Here Cachin plays another submissive service game at 6-5, not pushing, offering attackable balls to Nadal who drags everything to the tiebreak. The Bell Ville player squanders a 4-1 lead with two mini-breaks in the tiebreak too: the forehand errors at 4-2 and 5-4 are particularly serious. The Argentine still manages to win the tiebreak 7-5 with a nice diagonal backhand return and to take everything to the third.
In the third set Nadal tries to shake himself off, starts swinging his forehand again and immediately goes ahead 2-0 with a break. After a negative and still passive start, Cachin manages to get back in touch with two deep replies that make it 2-2. The Argentine doesn’t shake off the specters and fears, plays a terrible fifth game wanting to get out of the exchanges with hasty solutions such as the bunt and loses the serve again. A break that Rafa manages to maintain until the end and seal with the final double break: 6-3 in the third after more than three hours to return to the round of 16 in Madrid.
Nadal closing the match with 36 winners and 32 free throws, unlike Cachin’s 41 unforced errors. The Spaniard decided to play percentage tennis: the rally started 66 times out of 76 on his serve and he served 78% of firsts, obtaining 64% of points.
